MY FIRST OLD QUARTER TOUR

On last Saturday, I had a nice first tour with an Israel couple staying in King Ly Hotel, Sam was the main guide and I was assistant. It was my first time to do this job so I was really nervous. Because Dat had noticed me at 11 pm the night before and I had to get the bus at 6.45am in the morning so I didn’t have time to prepare for the tour, Sam told me about the first work to do before meeting tourists “ask the hotel receptionist about the guests information if they are out or not”. At that time, they were going out for coffee so I and Sam chatted a little bit. Then we met the two young tourists, introduced ourselves. I had not chosen an English name before so just said that I’m Phuong. The man thought it was the name of a kind of food but I couldn’t understand.

Coffee Store.

DURING THE TOUR :

Our tour started at Ly Thai To park, then we came to Ngoc Son Temple, Hoan Kiem lake, the heritage house, Bach Ma temple, Hang Ma street, Dong Xuan Market and stopped at the coffee. Though I can’t remember their name, I know the wife was 26 and the husband was 27, the wife has just graduated from a college of medicine. On the road to Ly Thai To park, they said they have visited Vietnam since the week before and had come to Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa. I asked the women if they had kayaked. She had done, and about the trip to Sa Pa, she told about how she had traveled to mount Phanxipang. In that tour, I was not brave enough to talk about any destinations, I thought that I had better look closely what the main guide did and sometimes talked about what she did not say to extend the story. When we sat on the lake bank, we talked more about Vietnamese culture and tradition, history, people, religion as well as Israel. At the heritage house, the husband wondered why the living room was near the courtyard and why they weren’t afraid of cold in the winter when sitting there. The couple was amazed at the ancient toilet because of its height. When Sam talked about the lime trees that Vietnamese ate their leaves, immediately the husband picked a leaf and ate it! I thought that he thought it was a kind of vegetable which could be eaten when being raw. Of course, he found it tastes terrible and we had a big laugh. Finally, when we were at the coffee, we had a talk and enjoin egg coffee. The young wife shows us their photos at trip to Sa Pa and on the highest mountain of Vietnam. They told about their pet: a very cute dog that she called her daughter. The man said that he liked manga and especially One Piece, but I didn’t know much about it. The woman said she liked KFC but there was no KFC store in Israel that makes us so surprised. After the talk, we took photos and say goodbye.

According to this first tour, I realized many shortcomings of myself. The biggest problems are listening and the information about everything. If I had known more about life, history, culture, I could have talked with them better, and our talk or maybe the tour will be more interesting! It will take time for me to improve all of that but I’ll try my best later.